The Absurdity of "Apocalypse Now!"

Hopefully this blog post will make a bit more sense than the last one. Anyways, we're back to Existentialism. This post will focus on "the absurd" operating in an old Vietnam movie.

Apocalypse Now! is a film that tries to show the outrageousness of war, much like Existential thinkers often try to outline the ridiculous things in everyday life. Here's one of the scenes that fits this theme best: the soldiers in this clip are bombing the living hell out of a Vietnamese village, all while playing one of Wagner's symphonies.

There are a few more worthy quotes, such as an exchange between the officer in command and the main character, Willard. They are talking about the general's idea of surfing in Vietnamese waters.

Willard asks, "Are you crazy, Goddammit? Don't you think it's a little risky for some R&R?

The officer replies, "If I say it's safe to surf this beach, Captain, then it's safe to surf this beach! I mean, I'm not afraid to surf this place, I'll surf this whole fucking place!"

Many existentialists portray life as being irrational and impossible to understand. Camus, Sartre, and others held views centering around the absurd. The world doesn't give us any meaning to latch onto, according to these thinkers; however, we are able to create it for ourselves. Rewarding, right?

One of the main problems with creating our own "meaning" or purpose for living is that there is no way of stopping people from forcing their beliefs on others or just using others for their own purposes. To be a bit more clear, there is no universal morality for people to look at, realize, and then all agree to abide by. Existentialists, when asked about this contradiction, might respond that as a society we need to create a morality system that will allow us to all exist in harmony. I'm not going to disagree that this course of action is best when confronted with a problem of nonexistent moral truths, but it certainly doesn't seem to satisfy the human need for justice and truth that everyone can recognize individually.

But if it's not there, it's not there, right? Nothing we can do about it. Still, just because it's hard to find a "purpose" or meaning of life doesn't mean that one doesn't exist. Maybe it's hiding, just out of reach? My prejudice against ethical subjectivism kinda shows through here. Still, there's a lot to be seen when we recognize "the absurd." It jolts (throws) us out of our everyday existence, as

Heidegger would say.

And now to end with some awesome quotes.

"One through nine, no maybes, no supposes, no fractions. You can't travel in space, you can't go out into space, you know, without, like, you know, uh, with fractions - what are you going to land on - one-quarter, three-eighths? What are you going to do when you go from here to Venus or something? That's dialectic physics."

"Hey, man, you don't talk to the Colonel. You listen to him. The man's enlarged my mind. He's a poet warrior in the classic sense. I mean sometimes he'll... uh... well, you'll say "hello" to him, right? And he'll just walk right by you. He won't even notice you. And suddenly he'll grab you, and he'll throw you in a corner, and he'll say, "Do you know that 'if' is the middle word in life? If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you"... I mean I'm... no, I can't... I'm a little man, I'm a little man, he's... he's a great man! I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across floors of silent seas... "

-----Photojournalist from Apocalypse Now!